Awaiting
by LadyVibeke87
Summary: “Did you ever date someone undercover? After about a hundred dinners alone, it starts to sink in.” She had learned not to expect anything. She had got used to go out from work alone, and drive home alone, and find it empty. Always. [CaKe]


I haven't seen any Calleigh/Jake (aka CaKe) fic here yet, so here's the first.

I got inspired by something the vic's wife said in Going Under, and this is what came out.

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"_You're a cop… Did you ever date someone undercover? … After about a hundred dinners alone, it starts to sink in. … Suddenly I'm not real. Nothing normal is."_

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She had learned not to expect anything. She had got used to go out from work alone, and drive home alone, and find it empty. Always.

Calleigh stared down at the table in front of her, perfectly laid for a romantic dinner which would never begin.

She had cleaned the whole house, that afternoon, made lasagne and lemon sherbet, spent an hour getting prepared, lit some candles all around the room, and then she had waited.

She felt stupid, sitting alone in her dining room, with that red silk halterneck dress and high heels, wearing her most beautiful pearl earrings and the rubelite pendant he had given her for her birthday.

She couldn't believe she had been so naïve to think he would really come.

She spared herself to try and count the times it had happened. She had lost the count after the fist two months.

She took the fork and started fiddling absentmindedly with the food, her curls cascading on her shoulders in the golden, pale glow of the burning candles. Everything had gone cold, and the magic atmosphere she had floated in for the whole day had completely vanished, leaving her watching out of the window on her right, seeing nothing but darkness and lights and a world that was living without her.

She had been sure he would have made it, this time.

She had forgiven him for Thanksgiving, and even for her birthday, but she couldn't stand the idea of spending their first anniversary alone.

A solitary tear quickly trailed down her cheek, falling noiselessly on the glass of the table.

She was tired to go to sleep and lie in bed on her own, with the scent he had left on the blankets the last time he had come home and made love to her and held her to him almost desperately, disappearing the morning after before she could even tell him she would miss him.

She wiped her eyes with a nervous gesture, letting the fork fall back into the plate with a dry, echoing noise.

She would never know if he was just late, or if he wouldn't show up at all, or if he would never come back anymore. She constantly had to live with the wearing doubt, wondering if he was just struck somewhere because of his duty, or lying lifeless somewhere in a pool of blood.

She looked at the red wine into the two glasses and felt the urge to fling everything on the floor.

She had done her best to make everything perfect. She had hidden the vase of flowers he didn't like. She had bought that dress only for him. She had done all of that just because she wanted to let him know she loved him.

But Jake hadn't come, and Calleigh was wondering how many other lonely evenings she would spend like that, staring at the door hoping he would come in, sooner or later.

A sudden movement under the table startled her. She looked down and saw Bullet, the white kitten Jake had brought home one month before. She was a gift for her, and she adored her, but that little hairball would always remind her why he wasn't there.

She stood up and gently picked her, hearing her purr happily as her hand caressed her soft hair.

Calleigh stared at her own reflection in the window. She looked beautiful, but nobody would tell her.

Her make up had melted, and now her expression looked even sadder. Behind the elegant attire and the fancy jewels lay a broken heart deprived of any hope.

She held Bullet to her chest and gazed up at the ceiling, trying not to let go of the tears again.

The worse part of the whole situation was that it didn't matter how many other times he would leave her alone again. Whenever he would come back, she would be too glad to see him again to do anything else than fall into his arms and kiss him again and again, because she would never know which of those kisses would be the last.


End file.
